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Equipment Vendors Selling Stills with Design Flaws


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There is something going on that everyone should be aware of.  There are 3 distillery equipment vendors out there that are importing stills from China that have major design flaws.  One company is in Canada.  All of the drawings on their web site are my design drawings. These drawings were given to them by a factory that I used to build some of my equipment.  What they do not realize is that  I added design flaws to the drawings before I submitted them to the factories.  When I get the equipment here we fabricate things and change things to make these stills work correctly.  We also pressure test them, inspect the welds, run and test the agitators, add apollo pressure relief and vacuum relief valves, assemble everything to make sure that all parts and components are there, then I personally do a 30 point inspection before the equipment leaves here..

  Another company is in Washington state.  I have helped one of their customers with multiple problems concerning their still.  The vendor could not even give the customer the info needed to wire the agitator and that was just the beginning of a long list of problems.   

Another of these vendors is in the Rockies.  This vender sold a still to a customer with the same design flaws that I drew into my designs when I submitted them to a certain factory 6 years ago..   I am helping that customer solve their problems now. Also this vendor sold a jacketed vessel to one of their customers with no vacuum relief valve and it imploded.

If you are on a distillery equipment vendors web site and their stills look just like mine, beware they will probably not function properly, especially if they have bubble plate columns.  Here is a link to my web site  http://distillery-equipment.com if you see my design for sale on other web sites email me paul@distillery-equipment.com.

 

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Southernhighlander said:

I don't think that I can do that on here.  I can tell you that it is certainly not Steve Cage.

 

1 hour ago, Absinthe Pete said:

I thin it's TOTALLY Legit to mention websites that either, 1. Have Design Problems and/or 2. Are stealing other people's designs.

I'm not sure as well about the forum rules, but this should definitely be allowed.

 

Just taking a flyer but I bet if you google "Vancouver still maker" you will get your answer.  

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  • 1 month later...

Just FYI/somewhat related - Steve Cage is now retired from ASD.  I emailed last week inquiring about parts and that was the auto-reply.  [we are still quite happy with our ASD pot still that we purchased several years ago]

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14 hours ago, nabtastic said:

Just FYI/somewhat related - Steve Cage is now retired from ASD.  I emailed last week inquiring about parts and that was the auto-reply.  [we are still quite happy with our ASD pot still that we purchased several years ago]

Steve did share this news on the forum:

 

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Just to be clear, it is possible to encounter design flaws in any new design of still, even from a veteran manufacturer. We had to modify or rebuild or replace components of a new still from a veteran manufacturer, and we supposed it was because it was not one of their standard designs at the time. But a good still manufacturer will own up to any limitations of their design and assist with the changes and possibly repair or replace under warranty. That was our experience with our vendors. On the other hand, my experience has been that the German manufacturers are least likely to have these problems.

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4 hours ago, bluestar said:

Just to be clear, it is possible to encounter design flaws in any new design of still, even from a veteran manufacturer. We had to modify or rebuild or replace components of a new still from a veteran manufacturer, and we supposed it was because it was not one of their standard designs at the time. But a good still manufacturer will own up to any limitations of their design and assist with the changes and possibly repair or replace under warranty. That was our experience with our vendors. On the other hand, my experience has been that the German manufacturers are least likely to have these problems.

Bluestar, I agree, most manufacturers have issues, especially within the first couple of years and with one offs and yes it's how those issues are handled that separates the good from the bad.  We have had issues with new designs, but as we have grown and gained experience, issues have become less common.   

New designs can have flaws, but these are not new designs and these designs were not created by these vendors or the factories that supplied them.  These 3 companies are selling stills built to design drawings that I did 5 or 6 years ago. I know this for a fact because their customers supplied me with the drawings that were given to them by the vendors, so that I could help them solve the many problems that they had encountered. The drawings were identical to my originals including all of the flaws that I originally drew in, to protect myself. Also I'm not talking about 1 issue or another, on the contrary these people had a myriad of problems.

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